Sofia Chiles

[MurderWeasel]

Name: Sofia Chiles
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Hobbies and Interests: Folklore, Folk and Country Music, Exploring and Nature, Cowboys, Reading, Revolver Marksmanship

Appearance: Sofia is a young woman of slightly above average height, standing at 5'7". Her weight of 145 lbs gives her a generally athletic build. Her fitness is the result more of a naturally active lifestyle than any sort of organized regime; as a result, her muscle is of the wiry, practical sort. She tends towards pronounced motions, often content to sit still unless and until she feels the need to act, at which point she does so quickly and wholeheartedly.

Sofia has a wide, expressive face, and usually broadcasts her emotions clearly. This is particularly true of her eyebrows, which she keeps shaped but close to their natural thickness. Her eyes are dark brown, similar in color to her hair, which she wears cropped close to her head (perhaps an inch and a half at the longest), in a more traditionally masculine cut. She has a wide mouth, with front teeth ever-so-slightly crooked, and a broad, short nose. Her cheeks are full. Sofia's Caucasian complexion is naturally pale, but she spends enough time outside to sport at least a bit of a tan in all but the darkest parts of winter.

Generally speaking, Sofia tends to be fairly quiet. When she does speak, she typically does so with an exaggerated and affected twang; despite her best efforts, she still has not quite perfected her American accent after more than a half decade living in Minnesota, and under stress or around her family she quickly reverts to her native accent and a much quicker rate of speech.

Sofia usually dresses for a combination of practicality and fashion, but her aesthetic differs from that favored by most of her peers. She cultivates an intentionally androgynous look, favoring men's jeans and button-down shirts; these tend to get dirty and somewhat ragged in relatively short order. Her ears are pierced once apiece in the lobe, but these days she never wears earrings. On the day of the abduction, Sofia was wearing a pair of men's jeans, a red and green flannel shirt with pearl snaps, and a pair of brown cowboy boots

Biography: Sofia was born in Bellington, in the United Kingdom, on October 13, 2005. Her arrival was a bright spot in an otherwise mixed year for her mother, Amber Chiles. Amber, a young woman employed in a local corner store, had earlier in the year lost her mother to cancer, and two months before Sofia's birth her husband—and Sofia's father—a man named Joshua Chiles, was made redundant from his job as an office secretary. Sofia was thus born into a lower-class, single income household, one where every day represented a struggle.

It was primarily through community support combined with assistance from relatives that Sofia was able to have as normal an early childhood as she did. In her earliest years, she was mostly watched by her father, but was also often passed to neighbors for safekeeping, and developed an early flexibility and independence, entertaining herself in varied company or alone and under differing degrees of supervision. She attended preschool when possible; the assistance from the state offered an important tool for her parents, who were preoccupied with their own situations as her father cycled through a number of short-term jobs and struggled with feelings of personal inadequacy. This lack of self-confidence would routinely sabotage his attempts to better his position; he'd landed his first job relatively easily upon graduation, and when future employment opportunities were less immediate he fell into coasting, spending long spans of time without actively pursuing better options while he exhausted himself with seasonal work—something the further compounded his issues by creating a large employment gap in his primary area of interest that he struggled to explain on those occasions he did get interviews.

When Sofia began primary school, it further relieved the burden for her parents, though Sofia did not make the transition easily. Used to greater freedom and less structure, she chafed at the imposed order and especially the greater focus on traditional classroom procedures, frequently tuning out lessons that failed to immediately engage her attention. She was prone to mercurial relationships, easily befriending other students and just as easily falling out with them or cultivating feuds.

One of the few activities Sofia took seriously and excelled at was reading. She held a deep love of stories, and could spend hours alone, engrossed in books. A large part of this literary fascination was due to her parents, and especially her father. In an effort to connect with and entertain Sofia, Joshua frequently regaled his daughter with stories. These mostly took the form of folklore centered around the American Wild West, often edited to feature Joshua's older sister, Rose, who had moved to the United States to live with her husband, Dwayne, with the couple ultimately ending up running a small ranch.

These stories served as a way for Joshua to find a personal escape from his stagnant situation, and to in some way express his gratitude to his sister, who had offered the family financial support at several points in Sofia's earliest childhood, while also providing an outlet and role model for Sofia more active and adventurous than himself. A side effect of this, however, was that Sofia developed a highly romanticized view of America, the Wild West, and the cowboys and outlaws that populated it. This helped inform her uncooperative attitude towards school authority. Amber realized that this was a problem, and often talked with Sofia about the difference between right and wrong, but this mostly just ended up instilling her with a strong sense of justice, though frequently of the vigilante variety. Sofia was frequently involved in minor scuffles and was often in detention, but since she tended to be acting in at least tentative defense of herself or others her parents did little to reprimand her, and consequences solely enacted by the school made little impression on her beyond furthering her adversarial relationship with the institution. Sofia to this day thinks fondly of the stories she was told as a child; though she is now aware of the fictional nature of the narratives, she still feels a personal connection to them and holds their lessons close.

Over the summer before Sofia's thirteenth birthday, her father received an offer from his sister to come work for her ranch directly, helping with paperwork; the family lived in Minneapolis, with Joshua commuting an hour each way to the ranch. Given his difficulties finding career footing, and Amber's own comparatively modest employment situation, the family jumped on the opportunity, and Sofia was initially excited to visit a new place and experience a lifestyle that she imagined would be more like the stories she was told. The adjustment, however, was difficult for her; she quickly discovered that her romanticized ideas of the West were quite different from reality, and she had difficulty integrating with other students, standing out due to her accent, her attitude, and her interests.

As Sofia grew older, she took advantage of the greater opportunities for autonomy afforded to her, generally spending as much time as possible out and about. She loved exploring the town of Bellington and its surroundings before the move, and afterwards often either explored the parks in town or accompanied her father to visit the ranch. She found the freedom and potential for adventure exhilarating. Sofia liked to imagine herself as a character in her favorite pieces of folklore, getting to know the wildlife and the conditions of the area. She spent her free time in the fields and streams and wooded areas, or around the ranch, and her aunt was eager to show her the ropes when it came to basic tasks. Her uncle tended to be busier and had less history with Sofia, but still made an effort to involve himself in her life. He spent more time showing her the day-to-day operations of the ranch, something which held less interest for her when she was younger but became increasingly interesting over the years as she started to mull her own career prospects. Dwayne also tried to teach Sofia to ride a horse, though her temperament wasn't good for it; the large animals made her nervous and she found herself much more at home in the driver's chair of a riding lawnmower than she did in a saddle.

In the past two years, this has evolved further, as Rose invited Sofia to practice shooting, letting her use a classic revolver for target practice in an isolated section of the ranch. Amber was initially very displeased that Sofia was allowed to use a gun without an explicit discussion with the whole family, but came around when she saw Sofia's genuine excitement and when Sofia was able to explain the safety precautions being taken, proving herself responsible. Sofia loved firing her aunt's revolver and took it very seriously, treating the weapon with respect and only using it under direct supervision; she viewed it as a show of confidence in her, and also a way to be more like the Western heroes she idolized.

These breaks from normal life were a huge relief to Sofia; she otherwise found the modern world dull and depressing, a constant stream of forced activities she didn't find inspiration in coupled with a deep sense of not belonging. Getting away from it all helped her find peace and calm, yet also excitement. As she grew older and began to find like-minded individuals, she would often invite them along on her ramblings, and these were the times she was most engaged and articulate.

Sofia also took to singing when alone, favoring traditional folk songs and older country music. These appealed to her because of their ties to the Wild West she adored and also their rough, unpretentious manner of delivery; she could sing in her own voice, imperfect though it was, and unaccompanied, and still be in the spirit of the music. In fact, in her eighth grade year Sofia briefly took choir classes in school, but quickly discovered a deep-seated incompatibility; she did not cooperate well with others and bristled at the direction given her. She also despises most modern country music with its greater focus on the modern world and its frequently conservative political messages and gender norms, and will often argue with others about how the older works are better.

By the time she started at Aurora Bay High, Sofia was fairly established among her peers as eccentric. Her interests were largely backwards-looking and approached with the zeal of an outsider, and while she didn't shun the conveniences of the modern world, she also found little spark or romance in them. She had an old cell phone that she often carried at her mother's request, but left it off or forgot to bring it (or claimed to have forgotten it while leaving it behind on purpose) often enough that she was frequently hard to reach. She lacked interest in discussions about modern bands, but was thrilled to spend time in traditional folk/country spheres, learning old songs and talking about how the world used to be. She had managed to quash some of her accent, but replaced it with an affected American accent she could never quite get right.

Her relationships with her classmates were deeply inconsistent. Sofia made quick friends on a casual level, but was also easily insulted, and struggled to back down. She rarely faced bullying, but this was mostly because she quickly established a reputation as one willing to physically fight those who crossed her. Indeed, she took bullying of others almost as personally as that directed towards herself, and would intervene on behalf of others as well; this happened less frequently as bullies learned to avoid her, but still often enough to be a part of her reputation at school. She was disciplined for this by the school, usually in the form of detentions or brief suspensions, but as she tended not to be the aggressor her punishments weren't too heavy. Her mother made halfhearted attempts to reign her in, but generally let Sofia do as she chose, while her father quietly encouraged her to stand up for her beliefs. Among those she was close to, Sofia was warm, talkative, and always eager to lead an adventure. To the bulk of her classmates, however, she was a wildcard who tended towards sullen silences, apathy, and explosive outbursts. To those subjected to bullying, she was often viewed as a well-intentioned, if inconsistent and unpredictable, ally, and some students sought her out or hung around her simply because her presence deterred those who might otherwise have picked on her. Sofia considers herself heterosexual, but more by default than because she's given it a lot of thought; she has never dated anyone and does not view romance as an immediate goal or an important part of her life.

Sofia's academic performance was also decidedly mixed. She struggled with subjects requiring lengthy study, frequently failing math assignments simply due to not turning them in. She did well in English as long as she enjoyed the focus of a lesson, but if a book irritated or bored her in some fashion, she'd put it aside in favor of personal reading and try to bluff her way through exams and essays, with inconsistent results. Sofia did not cheat, feeling it was beneath her, but sometimes got help from her friends that was just shy of them doing the work for her; even this was not enough to keep her consistently in the academic clear, however, and she's still in the bottom third of most classes, and is in remedial math and science. Physical education, on the other hand, was a place where Sofia excelled. Sports helped her burn off energy and channel her aggression into competition, and her grades there have always been high. She did not, however, join any teams outside of the class, largely because she doesn't do well with continuous teamwork; she could work even with someone she hated for the span of a gym class, but couldn't practice with them peacefully week after week.

Sofia's relationship with her family is complicated. Sofia loves her mother dearly, and tries her best to not disappoint the woman. However, Amber is quite different from her daughter, extroverted yet somewhat demure, proper in her dealings with others and always focused on her work—in fact, since the move, she has moved into management at a department store and spends much of her time at work, giving it significant priority. Joshua is much more like Sofia, sharing her sense of justice and more willing to humor her interests, and he's the one she turns to most often with concerns or for support. Sofia is also quite close to her aunt, though Rose occupies a distinctly non-parental role in her life, allowing her to avoid ever having to discipline or butt heads with Sofia. Sofia is the most assertive member of her family, pushing against rules and attempts at discipline, and her parents do not really know how to control their daughter, especially now that she's in her late teens; generally speaking, Sofia enjoys a very permissive home situation and takes advantage of that as best as she can.

Sofia's poor academic record makes further education besides perhaps community college impractical, but she hopes to find employment at her aunt's and uncle's ranch following graduation; she's slightly uncomfortable with the idea of it being nepotism, but at the same time is very willing to seize the opportunity regardless.

Advantages: Sofia is in fairly good shape. She's been in a number of schoolyard tussles, which is more than some of her peers can say. She's used to spending a lot of time on her own, including in unfamiliar environments. She also has experience with firearms, specifically revolvers, and knows the basics of safety and shooting.
Disadvantages: Sofia is touchy, mercurial, and aggressive towards those she doesn't like. This means she has a reputation among her class that may lead others to avoid her, and these traits are also likely to stir up trouble in a high stress environment. She also has a strong sense of justice which can easily lead her into conflicts that don't really involve her. When personally upset or morally outraged, Sofia tends to leap into action regardless of possible negative consequences, and without taking the time to properly consider her approach.

Original Profile: Sofia Chiles (PV3)
Permission: Own Character

[Slam]

Blah blah you've done enough of these profile critiques over the years that I'm going to spare you the niceities and just tell you what parts I'm unhappy with.

Age: 18

If Sofia's birthday is in October and she was born in 2006 then she won't be 18 until after she graduates in the summer of 2024/dies before then. Either move the birth forward a year or age her down to 17.

She did not attend preschool; the cost was comparatively high, and her parents were preoccupied with their own situations, as her father cycled through a number of short-term jobs and struggled with feelings of personal inadequacy.

After 2006 Sofia would've been entitled (page 11) to at least 12.5 hours of free nursery (or 'preschool' as you yanks put it) a week for up to 33 weeks a year. Given the family's financial situation, she probably would've been entitled to more. Please reconsider this part with this in mind.

Joshua's older sister, Rose, who had moved to the United States to live with her husband, with the couple ultimately ending up running a small ranch.

I note that we have plenty of interactions between Sofia and Rose but her poor uncle doesn't even get a name. Can we either give some detail on their interaction or justify why it's not there?

Shortly before Sofia started seventh grade, her father received an offer from his sister to come work for her ranch directly,

I'm not clear if this is supposed to be seventh grade in American grades (age 12-13), or what we call year seven (which is ages 11-12). Since we're still in England at this point, could you use English terminology for consistency and clarity.

Given his difficulties finding career footing,

Why did Joshua have such trouble finding career footing? Given that we're talking about the UK between roughly 2008-2017 or so based on Sofia's age, that's a long time to lack long-term employment given that English unemployment was relatively low in the mid 2010s.

She also has some light experience with firearms, specifically revolvers, and knows the basics of safety and shooting.

I would argue this is more than light, given how regularly Sofia seems to practice with her revolver.

Sofia doesn't take consequences particularly seriously until she's forced to directly confront them, which may be far too late in the context of the game.

I'm not sure this is justified by the profile. I can understand she has a dive-in first attitude when it comes to matters of justice, but I'm not sure that's phrased in the sense of her not considering the consequences so much as not prioritising them over doing the right thing. A little rephrasing or biography expansion would let this fly.

[+] Stylistics and Grammar

Sofia was born in Bellington, in the United Kingdom, on October 13, 2006, to Amber Chiles, a bright spot in an otherwise mixed year for her mother.

This sentence is kind of clunky to read due to the number of commas. You're probably better off splitting it in two.

a young woman employed in a small general store selling food and everyday products,

I'm not going to force you to change this but we don't really use the term 'general store' over here. We would be more likely to say 'corner shop' or just name the shop outright for this kind of business.

a constant stream of forced activities she didn't find inspiration in coupled with an a deep sense of not belonging.

Extra an.

but this was mostly because in she quickly established a reputation

Unnecessary in.

She's been in a number of schoolyard tussles, which is more than some of her peers an say.

Missing da c.

As you can see I'd just like some corrections to her English life and also a few clarifications and corrections on the latter parts of her profile. But it's good overall as I'd expect so fix those and you're probably fine I guess.

[MurderWeasel]

There we go! Sofia's the proper age, did go to preschool after all, and has an uncle with a name who she interacts with. Her dad's sort of prone to self-sabotaging, her gun experience isn't undersold, and terms have been tweaked to be less Americanized, but I did not restore her weight to measurement in stones like in the old profile.

[Slam]

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